‘She’s a pure Albanian’: the Greek-Cypriot diaspora’s response to Eleni Foureira was a re-affirmation of racial and religious intolerance
Georgio Konstandi
Europe’s love affair with the Eurovision Song Contest is one too often marred by accusations of political interference and general silliness. Yes, Montenegro is more likely to give Serbia twelve points than it is Iceland, and yes, you may find yourself watching three minutes of a man wearing angel wings singing the lyrics ‘touch my soul’, but the international juries have helped subdue neighbourly voting, and every year there is real talent in amongst the glitter and political theatrics. Furthermore, many award-winning artists from across the continent have built successful careers on the back of their participation in the contest.
One such artist is Eleni Foureira. After years of releasing music in Greece and Cyprus, Foureira was internally selected to represent Cyprus in the 2018 edition of the song contest, with the song Fuego. She gave the island its best ever result (2nd place). Immediately after her Eurovision success, Foureira’s horizon objectively exploded. The artist went on to sign a global deal with Sony Music, collaborated with international artists such as Snoop Dogg, went on tour in eight different countries and was certified gold in Norway, Sweden and Spain for Fuego - all within twelve months. Even the President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, honoured Foureira with an invite to the Presidential Palace in Nicosia. There are few artists to whom their participation in the contest has brought this level of success so quickly.
Labelled for Creative Commons License. Image Credit: Dewayne Barkley / EuroVisionary.
Despite this, the unanimous jubilation and pride one would expect from a community represented by such success was not shared by all members of Greek/Cypriot society. Namely, in the diaspora communities, the reaction to Eleni Foureira representing Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest was, at best, tepid, at worst, another grim affirmation of Greek intolerance towards Albanian people. Did I forget to mention? Eleni Foureira was born as Entela Fureraj in Fier, Albania. This is the same Albanian-born artist who was twice rejected, with little explanation, by Greek broadcasters to represent Greece in the same contest. Let us now formally begin this tragic tale of prejudice directed from one Balkan community towards another.
Signs of racial prejudice among the Greek-Cypriot diaspora community
To understand the nuances of Greek-Cypriot intolerance for Muslim-majority communities (which includes everything from overt hate speech to micro-aggressions) as a phenomenon, it is important to first underline that many (by no means all) Greek-Cypriots in the UK openly or privately emphasise the Greek in their Greek-Cypriot identity. The ramifications of this include a close affiliation with modern Greece, a country that Cyprus has never been part of. Coincidentally, any attempt to identify Cypriot culture with the Middle East, or God forbid Turkey (which Cyprus was part of for over three hundred years) is deemed sacrilege. Make of that what you will.
To be clear, the response to Eleni Foureira’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest as Cyprus’ representative was generally a positive one, especially among the young. The sane-minded knew that a star of Foureira’s ability could only be good news for an island who hadn’t finished outside the bottom six in the previous five years. However, a quick foray into the realms of the Greek-Cypriot diaspora community painted a more complex response.
My eyebrows were first raised when, upon scrolling through my Facebook feed, I came across the following comments left by a disgruntled member of my community (Editor’s Note: all comments have been kept anonymous, but they are freely accessible on Facebook at the time of writing this article):
‘Why is an Albanian born in Albania who is not from Cyprus and doesn’t live in Cyprus singing for Cyprus […] She’s full Albanian pretending to be an Ellinida (Greek woman)’
The disgruntled member of the Greek-Cypriot diaspora continues:
‘She’s a pure Albanian […] That’s what they do […] they learn the Greek language change their name to a Greek name then they start saying they are Greek’
This was the same individual who had once told me in person that Albanians were ‘scum’. I brushed the post off as a lone mad racist and got on with my day. Alas, my hopeful naivety would soon come crashing down when I made the mistake of checking in on the diaspora’s dedicated Facebook group, Greek Cypriots Growing Up In The UK. While the Facebook group, of course, does not represent the entire diaspora community, it does include 13,000 members, and remains active on issues varying from the tedious to the political. The cross-section of members covers both younger and older Greek-Cypriots living in the country, and political and cultural discussions usually reflect a diverse set of views. Eleni Foureira’s participation in the contest received much praise in this online microcosm of the community. Alas, it appeared the aforementioned racist was not alone in their vitriol aimed at the Albanian-born artist: the more intolerant, indeed hateful voices that are too often accommodated in the wider community came out in force:
‘What is wrong with having Ivi Adamou (Editor’s Note: a previous representative who is half Cypriot and half Bulgarian. We’ll come back to this later.) having another go again! She is a Greek Cypriot who is dating a Greek!’
‘All Albanians want to be Greek lol’
‘Would have been more appropriate to have had a Russian girl’
These select few comments offer us plenty of room for discussion. Firstly, the notion of Albanians wanting to be Greek is one that is part of a broader Greek supremacy complex that unfortunately appears to persist among too many strands of the global Greek and Greek-Cypriot community. An often endearing but absurd nostalgia for the feats of Ancient Greece can all too often develop racist undertones. Other cultures, especially those from the surrounding Balkan region, are overtly or implicitly dismissed as inferior, leading to nauseatingly arrogant conclusions such as people ‘wanting to be Greek’ or ‘wishing they were Greek’. Whilst this neo-imperialist prejudice was afforded a cute and fluffy depiction in the form of lovable father figure, Gus, from the American-Greek comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in reality it is usually underpinned with an intolerant, racialist worldview. This came to light in the negative reactions to Eleni Foureira’s participation in the song contest.
There was another subliminal message to the hateful response to Foureira, including the aforementioned remarks posted online. The Orthodox factor. Two of the main components of modern-day Greek ethnic nationalism are described by award-winning journalist Takis Michas as ‘the genealogical myth of origin’ in which all those considered Greeks ‘are descended from the glorious Hellenes of classical antiquity’ and, crucially, an identification with ‘the Orthodox religion’ (Michas, 2002). It is in this context that we should understand the seemingly bizarre remarks on Ivi Adamou and ‘a Russian girl’ mentioned above. Ultimately we have to ask ourselves, if Eleni Foureira did not have roots in a predominantly Muslim country like Albania, would she have avoided such outrage? If Foureira was ‘a Russian girl’, would she have been more easily accepted? If her ties had been with Orthodox Bulgaria, would she no longer be ‘pretending’ to be Greek and would her assimilation have been embraced like the revered ‘Greek-Cypriot’, Ivi Adamou? I shall leave that for the reader to decide.
Slut-shaming and the closet ethnic nationalist
Like with all forms of racists, there are inevitably some ethnic nationalists who will choose subtler ways to indicate their prejudice. This appeared to be evident in the case of the Greek-Cypriot diaspora’s response to Eleni Foureira’s performance that won Cyprus its best ever runner-up result.
The Greek-Cypriot affiliation with Greece that has already been explored means many things both politically and socially. But for the purpose of this article, it means that every Eurovision Song Contest sees the Greek-Cypriot diaspora community cheering on both the Cypriot entry and the Greek entry, without fail. While Cyprus has been known to send more conservative songs, Greece has sent its fair share of ‘shake-it’ entries, in which usually female artists perform songs about love and sex. A brief summary of the Greek ‘shake-it’ mini series:
Helena Paparizou (2005) performs My Number One, including the lyrics ‘You’re delicious, so capricious […] when I kiss your lips you know you take me higher’.
Kalomira (2008) performs My Secret Combination. Half way through the performance the artist takes off the upper half of her outfit, which includes a skirt that finishes a few inches below her rear, to reveal a semi-transparent bodice.
Eleftheria Eleftheriou (2012) performs the song Aphrodisiac, a song dedicated to a man who turns her on. Lyrics include ‘I’m craving for your touch. I want it way too much.’ All topped off with a short dress.
This is all sounding very Council of Ephesus. Bear with me. I have hopefully highlighted that all of the performances listed above were designed to get votes through sex appeal (and a catchy melody). The formula is well known to the pop industry. Moreover, they were warmly received by the Greek-Cypriot diaspora, young and old. Paparizou’s winning performance alone is looked fondly upon to this today as part of a Hellenic ‘golden era’ coupled with Greece winning the Euro Cup in 2004. Love and lust represented the community’s beloved Hellenic flag every time and each time it was celebrated.
You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I heard echoes of misogyny aimed at Eleni Foureira’s performance, whose only ostensible difference from previous ‘sexy’ performances was being a thousand times slicker. Let us refer to the compendium of the diaspora’s Facebook group:
‘What a load of showmanship and slutty dancing!’
‘Well she fucked the right person’
‘I certainly wouldn’t like my daughters to dress like Foureira’
These online comments were compounded with similar responses closer to home. I was gobsmacked. What on Earth had changed in the diaspora community to find the very type of ‘shake-it’ performance venerated for years now so morally offensive? For the elusive answer, I shall refer to a comment made by the admin of this very Facebook group:
‘I just don’t get why we couldn’t have a sexy Cypriot girl singing a sexy Cypriot song’
Ah. At last, the white smoke.
A deeper, darker political context
The pockets of intolerance within the Greek-Cypriot diaspora in the UK is but one limb of a much bigger monster. For it is this same prejudice existing in pockets of Greece (and Cyprus) that meant Eleni Foureira had little choice but to conceal her Albanian identity from the Greek public (reportedly on the orders of her Greek record label) for years. To be extra clear for anyone still in any doubt, Foureira was never ‘pretending to be Greek’. As hard as it is for ethnic nationalists to believe, there are an array of rich cultures outside the Hellenic bubble of which people are rightly proud to be a part. The fact that a grown woman felt forced to conceal her roots only reveals the power of intolerance in her society.
The global Greek community has an underplayed, bloodied history as regards its treatment of majority-Muslim communities (among others). Greek diaspora media regularly publishes sensationalist or outright falsehoods about the Albanian community and some of its leading figures. It was this same intolerance for Muslim communities that played a decisive role in the Greek government’s political and military backing of war crimes against Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. After all, it was Greek soldiers who proudly hoisted the Hellenic flag in Srebrenica moments after participating in the genocide of the town’s male Muslim population in 1995 (an event that conveniently does not fall under the ‘common Greek history’ taught in Greek diaspora schools across the United Kingdom).
Given this depressing historical context, today it is heartwarming to see Foureira, after years of treading on the eggshells of intolerance, openly embrace her Albanian roots. She is a talented musician and performer who as a child fled a civil war. Her success story embodies the dreams of so many who have walked her path. For that alone, this Greek-Cypriot author tips his hat.